As South Africa continues efforts to finalise the bid it hopes can help it win back a place on the Formula 1 calendar, one of the more interesting proposals on the table is a street race in Cape Town.
The idea is for the grand prix to run on a 5.7-kilometre track in the Green Point Sport Tourism Precinct, an affluent suburb to the northwest of the central business district.
Promoter Cape Town Grand Prix SA (CTGPSA) has been working on the idea of hosting a race there for almost 20 years and has been in dialogue with various government officials over the matter.
Collaboration with a number of partners, including track architects Tilke, eventually opened the door for it to host in 2023 a Formula E race on a similar layout to its F1 track concept.
The circuit design is based on roads that run around the DHL Stadium, which had originally been built as a host venue for the country’s 2010 football World Cup.
Its location ticks off one of the criteria laid down in the South Africa bid request which demands the venue be in an "iconic destination location".
The bid document demands that the "surrounding environment must contribute to the look and feel of a premier international event and/or provide an iconic backdrop".
That fits in with the Cape Town location being set right on the Atlantic seaboard, as well as the dramatic scenery of the city that sits under the shadow of Table Mountain.
The outline idea is for the F1 street track to be an extended version of the layout that was used for Formula E's first (and so far only) visit to Cape Town two years ago.
There are two notable additions, the first halfway around the lap where it loops around a roundabout and through a series of corners near the sea.
Then, towards the end of the original high-speed back straight run on the FE circuit, as the track tears along the beach front, there is a longer section that ends with two 90-degree corners.
The Formula E version of the track grabbed attention at the time for both good and bad reasons.
On the positive side, its high-speed layout - which was labelled by eventual race winner Antonio Felix da Costa as giving the place a ‘Monza-type feel' - proved spectacular.
And despite being a street circuit, it did produce overtaking - with da Costa's thrilling last-lap pass, having come from 11th on the grid, helping deliver a very memorable race for South Africa.
But the weekend was not without its dramas. There was a late decision to remove a 'pif-paf' chicane between Turns 8 and 9, after concerns it could cause more problems than the gains it brought in reducing speed.
Plus there were also issues with the track surface being quite bumpy. Drivers experienced their machines lifting all four wheels off the ground on occasions, and Mahindra withdrew all its cars for the race amid concerns about suspension problems.
Sam Smith's view on Formula E's Cape Town circuit
Cape Town’s 2.921 km (1.815 mi) street circuit in the heart of the ‘Mother City’ was one of the boldest and most thrilling pop-up tracks that Formula E has ever produced.
Along with the Rome and Diriyah circuits it flowed and kinked its way around stunning backdrops of Table Mountain and within sight of the rolling Atlantic Ocean. It had pretty much everything, including more than a hint of jeopardy!
Two portions of it really stood out.
The first was the flow of the challenge. Straight from the grid, there was a ribbon of kinks before a hard braking left-hander which was the first obviously overtaking part of the lap. There then followed a flat-out left and right before the only chicane which was added at a late stage to ensure suitable re-gen.
This was the only blot on the wonderous landscape but after that followed two classic 90-degree left-handers, almost on the seafront at the beautiful Mouille Point Beach where on race day several mesmerising killer whales were seen playfully splashing around.
Those two left-handers were linked by a fearsome left-hand kink that was flat, only for the brave. This was where Edoardo Mortara crashed in qualifying and was then in turn shunted by a furious Sam Bird who had zero warning of the wreck ahead.
Looping back to the start line was another quick left and right, scene of da Costa’s outrageous stalking and strike for the lead on Jean-Eric Vergne in the closing stages of one of Formula E’s best-ever races.
If the Cape Town E-Prix had been a one-off for Formula E, it was a memorable one.
Rival bids
While former host venue Kyalami has emerged as an obvious favourite to win the bid to hold a potential South African GP, Cape Town still thinks it has a good chance of convincing the government about its project.
Although Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie has spoken positively about Kyalami, he has also left the door open in public on a street race project.
He told SABC News: "F1 allows you to have a street race, so that door cannot be shut for other people…it just needs to make sense."
There is still a long way to go before South African officials even begin assessing the bids for the race, the deadline for which has been extended until mid-March, but Cape Town's promoter is upbeat about its chances.
The CTGPSA project's CEO Igshaan Amlay said recently: "Having seen 2024 culminate on such a positive and hopeful note after a 19-year stakeholder engagement journey, gives us a renewed resolve to take the next steps in this formal bidding process.
"With the continued support from our local and international supporters and F1 enthusiasts, we are ready to bring an F1 street race to our spectacularly located circuit."
